December 12th, 2012

A community-supported fishery that delivers wild salmon from waters surrounding Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to Lower 48 customers is featured in a recent article in Forbes.com, one of the country’s leading business publications.Sitka Salmon Shares’ home-delivered packages of king,  silver, and red salmon, caught by small-boat fishermen in a highly regulated fishery, is listed in the article as one of seven sustainable gift ideas for the holiday season.

“There is nothing a foodie likes more than fresh, local food.  So why not buy him or her a subscription to a community supported farm or fishery?  Many of these can be found via websites like Local Harvest or Local Dirt (just put in your foodie’s zip code to find a farm).  There are also new fishery and meat “shares” popping up across the country, like Sitka Salmon Shares who will ship the fresh product where ever you’d like,” the article states.

Sitka Salmon Shares grew from an outreach program by the Sitka Conservation Society to promote awareness of Southeast Alaska’s healthy wild salmon runs and their vital economic importance to the Alaska Panhandle. Sitka Salmon Shares is now a thriving boat-to-table seafood company, based in Galesburg, Ill., that buys salmon from family-owned and operated fishing businesses in Southeast Alaska, including Juneau-based Taku River Reds. In return for their careful handling of the fish, Sitka Salmon Shares pays the fishermen more than they normally receive from a large processor.

The company, which is modeled after community-supported agriculture programs, runs much like a subscription service. Customers buy “shares” of high-quality, flash-frozen wild salmon, from an upcoming fishing season and then receive installments of salmon over the course of the summer. For the holidays, as Forbes.com notes, Sitka Salmon Shares is offering salmon packages timed to reach doorsteps by Dec. 20.

Read more about Sitka Salmon Shares here. Visit the web site of Sitka Conservation Society, a Trout Unlimited partner and supporter of the Tongass 77 campaign, here.

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